Ilus Riding Waves | Sequence Lead
Responsible for: Template Ilu Animation, Mocap Stitching, Scene Building

This scene was super fun but also deceivingly difficult to put together! It kind of felt like the ultimate bouncing ball challenge but with the difficulty level cranked to 1000.

First, we had to animate the creatures (ilus) jumping through the waves and also make sure that the performance of the mocap matched the timing of the jumps. There was a lot of back and forth during this process to make sure that everything synced with one another.

In order to make this file flexible for sudden changes and new notes for virtual cameras shot on stage, we had to create a constraint system where we attached the animation to the surface of the water to allow the director to move the anim any where they wanted in world space.

Payakan Rope Grab | Sequence Lead
Responsible for: Template Payakan Anim + Hand Key Rope Anim

Who needs simulations when you can hand key a creature wrapping themselves in a rope!? Rope is never fun to animate, but it was honestly simpler to animate by hand in this case since it had to be very bespoke and the rope also needed to be art directed.

We went through several ideations of this (how many times should he roll over to wrap himself up / how do we get the rope into his mouth / how would the rope land around his head /etc etc) before finally landing on this one. This was also complicated since there isn’t really any reference we could pull from either…

Tuk Plays with Flower Tendrils | Sequence Artist
Responsible for: Template Flower Tendril Anim

This was one of the first animation tasks that I got to work on. My supervisor and I pitched about 6-7 versions all with different creatures and plants that Tuk could interact with to add some life to the world.

One of the biggest challenges on this show is that we are never allowed to cheat our animation, so I needed to make sure that each of these flower tendrils + petals actually made contact and wrapped around Tuk’s arm in a way that made sense.

Learning Montage: How to Ride Ilu | Sequence Lead
Responsible for: Template ilu animation, Mocap Stitching, Scene Building

This was such a fun light-hearted scene where we got to introduce everyone to a new major Pandoran creature- an ilu! Dialogue sequences are always a little tricky because all the subtle things stand out way more than they would in an action sequence.

When building this scene, we had to pay extra close attention to the performance capture since it would dictate the entire direction of the sequence. The template creature animation is almost always built around the timing of the mocap. We also needed to make sure that all eyelines, hand contacts, and timing of reactions worked against when key actions would play out. Because of this, there is always a lot of back and forth tweaking to ensure everything can playback as whole.

Payakan Saves Jake & Loak | Sequence Lead
Responsible for: Template ilu animation, Mocap Stitching, Scene Building

This was one of the easier sequences that I got to build. It was luckily very straight forward since it only had two characters just grabbing onto a creature that helps pull Jake and Loak up to the surface.

Surprisingly, most of the sequences that happen fully underwater were easier to manage since you never really had to worry about where characters were standing. Similar to this scene, our biggest challenges when working underwater was making sure contacts and constraints worked when needed. We also had to make sure everything stayed in tact for any timing and locational changes made in the file.

Akula Attack | Sequence Lead
Responsible for: Previs, Mocap Stitching, Scene Building

This complex sequence truly took teamwork to get through because of all the moving pieces. First, we had to previs out ideas of what this shark attack could be before the actors to get into the tank for underwater performance capture. Even after getting an idea approved, things of course changed and developed more as they started doing mocap.

Once that was complete, integrating everything back into CG took time. In this case, the akula (shark) animation had to take the lead, but we also had to make sure it would still fit within the parameters of the motion capture without augmenting it too much. The goal was to always try to keep the mocap data as true to the original performance as possible. If motion needed to be augmented, we would only make slight adjustments.

Quaritch & Recoms Interrogation | Sequence Lead
Responsible for: Mocap Stitching, Live Action Plate Integration, Scene Building

Here is another dialogue heavy sequence, but this time we needed to manage a high volume of characters, crowds and also live action elements as well.

The building process for a scene like this involves rebuilding the entire sequence multiple times. First we integrated the mocap into our files which were then prepped for a blocking pass of virtual cameras. Once we’ve conformed and adjusted any notes needed from the blocking pass, we prep the files for “JC v-cams” which is when our director will lock down the cameras and final shots. After all of that is complete, we will then go back again and prep the files for a process called “simulcam” which is when you can layer live action footage over CGI characters and environments in real time. Overall it is a tedious task, but it really helps make sure that all elements, whether CG or live action, will line up perfectly.

Sullys Reunite | Sequence Lead
Responsible for: Template Creature Animation, Mocap Stitching + Scene Building

In this sequence, the director decided to use motion capture data from different performance takes. This made the file build more challenging because we had to find a way to make the contacts work from two different performances that will never line up exactly 1:1.

At the same time, the Sully family all ended up on Payakan’s fin. So not only did we have to worry about using multiple performances, we also had to worry about how this will affect when constraints turned on and off without breaking anything.